We open the collection with a stunning imagination of what communication is in TheBookmaking Habits of Select Species, imagining alien forms of communicating. My favorite is the one of Quatzoli who are mechanical beings that “do not believe writing and thinking are separate things.” Thinking is etching, and water passes through stone consciousnesses to form streams of connection, epiphanies. Children are created by giving slivers of these stones, a package of wisdom. In many ways this story gives us a chance into how Liu isabout to give us an expanding imaginative mural of stories that shape and reshape, conjure and re-conjure, break and mend our understanding of what a story does and can do. It is as much history as it is cultural critique, it is science fiction as much as it is realism. This frames the entire experience of his stories, as each gives us a slice of a completely different world.

One of my favorite stories is Good Hunting, in which Liu weaves Chinese mythology of hulijing fox spirits with the urbanization and colonization of Hong Kong. This inspired a Love Death + Robots episode, and I’m not surprised. Liu manages to write about haunting spirits and transposing the same spirit onto machines and the mechanical world. Throughout his collection we see glimpses of the future and the past all while showing us truths about now. From the kinds of racism that happens even within a family, to fears and speculations about the meaning of data sharing in our world today, and discussions of freedom and Chineseness, Liu manages to pack extremely relevant issues in other worlds.

An exciting read, one that leaves you thinking and digesting for weeks to come.

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